“When I was a kid, there are two things I wanted badly and never got… A real dog and a Kenner AT-AT Walker”

A cracking piece of digital media from Patrick Boivin has allowed his childhood dreams to come true. It’s hard to believe this amazing short film isn’t produced solely using CGI.

Watch out for the hilarious guest appearance from “Jabba the Poo”. The stop animation and use of green screen is first class, if you are wondering how this piece of video wizardry was created, Boivin also created the making of this video.

An aerospace engineer and designer of some of NASA’s latest projects has jacked in his day job to explore the space between new media art and “super genius” technology. Based from Eyebeam, a US based creative technology center, James Powderly and partner in pixel crime, Evan Roth are creating some very clever experiments in modern digital technology and urban creativity.

The video below shows their impressive lazer tagging technique, which allows these digital vandals to slap their tags on the world’s famous landmarks and cities, and all with out any risk of being arrested.

But the most impressive part of this story is what the duo managed to achieve with leading LA graffiti artist, Tony Quan, AKA Tempt. A pioneer of the 80’s LA graffiti scene, Quan has suffered from a rare disease which has left him largely paralyzed since 2003, but he retains full mental capability and eye movement. The frustration he must feel at not being able to express his highly creative mind is unimaginable.

But within just a few day, Powderly and Roth adapted the lazer tagging system to create the Eye Writer system specifically for Quan, so he can once again make his mark on the urban landscape. Truly inspiring stuff !

Check out more digital vandalism and even a robo-tagger over at Temptone.

Harmony online sketching toolis an impressive experiment in HTML 5, (so you will need a supporting browser like Firefox or Google Chrome) that allows you to create soft pencil type drawings and sketch online with surprising ease.

Harmony developer Mr Doob has used canvass and JavaScript with HTML5’s ability to create bitmap images. The result is possibly one of the most mesmerising creative toys on the web.

Usually drawing with your mouse is inherently clumsy and messy, but Harmony’s sketching brushes create exquisitely smooth strokes and seems to know where to apply shading and texture.

These brushes seem to lend themselves particularly well to Anime type creations, urban/graffiti style lettering and charcoal. The squares, grid and circles tools allow you to create more geometric type imagery.

Still very much in it’s infancy, the open source code is not without its faults, (there is currently no delete or undo function so go carefully!) but we are bound to see improved releases of this exciting medium soon.

It’s been nine years since the the worlds first virtual hip hop band spawned from the imaginations of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. And the Gorillaz are now back with their latest installment, Plastic Beach. They may appear to dance on the fringe of pop, but do not under estimate the global fever pitch anything new from these guys creates.

Hewlett and Albarn cooked up the idea for the band in protest at the cartoon images of the popular commercial acts at the time, and the result was an ironic backfire as their popularity exploded. In 2006, a rumours of a rare live performance in Harlem led to tickets being sold in less than an hour from release. Their last release, Demon Days was the 5th biggest selling album of 2005, so this has a lot to live up to.

And they’ve returned with guns blazing. As ever, the collaborations are as eclectic as the musical style it’s self. Mark E Smith of post punkers The Fall, Snoop, Lou Reed and Bobby Womack all lend vocals to chunky hip hop beats, and bass lines so solid you could build a skyscraper on them. You can listen to the entire album at the Guardian.

Mixed Appeal

The art and characters of Jamie Hewlett account for a massive part of the appeal of the Gorillaz experience, and this hasn’t been ignored with the supporting release media. The new website allows you explore the Gorlliaz’ new home for yourself and fully immerse yourself in the lives of band members 2D, Russell, Murdoch and Noodle.

This time round, visual media is playing a more predominant role. Idents focusing on characters stories have been released, along with an orchestral introduction to the Plastic Beach environment. They’ve even recruited a demented Bruce Willis hit man for the video for the debut single Stylo.

Doing what most bands so after momentousness success, for the past few years they’ve been living somewhere on the south Pacific on their own island. Unfortunately for the Gorillaz, the island is made up of the washed up debris of humanity – visit the Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach

Blogroll

About The Digital Ape

Ben Lloyd writes The Digital Ape. This blog emerged from a passion for digital media technologies, a strong coffee table interest in anthropology and an over whelming urge to monkey about on the interweb.

By day I earn my bananas managing digital marketing projects and planning SEM strategies for enterprise clients. More